Prime Minister John Key has conceded it was “unwise” for Judith Collins to give Cameron Slater a public servant’s name, job title and phone number which was then used in an attack post on his Whale Oil blog.

However, John Key says no disciplinary action will be taken against the Justice Minister because the action pre-dated the final warning he gave Ms Collins over the Oravida scandal.

Mr Key says he still stands by the Justice Minister.

“I think the passing of private information, in terms of phone numbers, I think that’s unwise. It’s unwise of a Minister. Look in the end it’s one of those things,” Mr Key says.

“I absolutely and strongly deny this and any suggestion of inappropriate behaviour. I am restrained in clearing my name while I am still a Minister inside Cabinet and I believe the right thing to do is to resign as a Minister so I am able to clear my name.

I have asked the Prime Minister for an Inquiry into these serious allegations so that my name can be cleared. I will, of course, cooperate with any Inquiry.”

Only Minister Tolley has not been accused of a direct privacy violation of any individual(s) – at the moment. However, MSD is know to leak like a sieve and it was MSD that briefed the Minister regarding Winston Peters.

One thing is for certain; some Ministers are not averse when it comes to leaking personal details of individuals who run foul of this government.

A face-palm moment for ACT candidate, Anneka Carlson

Carlson is seventh on the list and would enter parliament if ACT gained 5 per cent of the party vote.

The 28-year-old never dreamt of being a politician but standing for ACT in her home town “just feels right.”

“It was meant to happen.”

Parliament needed people with life skills and her life experiences would help stand her in good stead if she is elected, she said.

The former West Auckland police officer owned her own business in New Plymouth, is a North Taranaki SPCA board member, and ran fitness programmes for cancer support groups.

She is also completing a business studies degree extra-murally at Massey University.

“I’m fairly young, and I’m surprised to be high on the list because I’m a bit of political newbie, but I’ve already seen lot of things from working in the police.

All well and good – engaging young New Zealanders to enter politics should be encouraged. It should never be the sole “happy hunting grounds” for Baby Boomers seeking to feather their own nests, at the expense of younger generations.

“It makes me wonder why people don’t know more about ACT in New Plymouth.”

It should be no surprise to anyone that Ms Carlson wonders why ACT is not supported more at the ballot box. It’s not because “people don’t know more about ACT“.

Quite the contrary – most New Zealanders middle-aged and over – are very clear about ACT and what it stands for. After all, we lived through ACT-style so-called “reforms” in the late 1980s and into the 1990s.

That is why ACT is not well supported except by a tiny minority of unreconstructed wealthy, privileged extremists. (Aka, the One Percent.) At 28, Ms Carlson would be oblivious to all this.

But at least Ms Carlson understands how privileged she is as a middle-class pakeha from an economically well-supported background. As she herself admitted;

“I’ve come from a fairly privileged upbringing…”

At least Ms Carlson has a measure of self-awareness. Given time and experience she may understand how that privileged upbringing gives her a head start in life that is denied many others.

She may even experience that critical Road-To-Damascus revelation that ACT’s market-driven ideology has made matters much, much worse since 1984.

I suggest the next cuppa tea she has is not with David Seymour, but Jim Bolger.

Which means Ms Ardern is now more popular than John Key was, prior to his resignation.

.

Another step back from globalisation

.

Queensland’s Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, has announced a major step back from neo-liberalism’s prime enabler, globalism, by announcing that the State government would prioritise local businesses for contracts. The aim is to create more local jobs.

Ms Palaszczuk was unapologetic in renouncing globalisation;

“ Our new procurement strategy is unashamedly a ‘Buy Queensland’ one. No longer will we be constrained by free trade agreements that have seen jobs go off-shore or interstate.

Wherever possible, one regional and one Queensland supplier will be invited to quote or tender for every procurement opportunity offered. Preference must be given to local subbies and manufacturers on significant infrastructure projects of $100 million or more.

This money comes from Queensland taxpayers, it is only right we spent it in a way that benefits Queensland businesses and workers as much as possible.”

According to the SBS report, Queensland spent A$14 billion per annum on supplies, services, plus A$4 billion building and maintaining State infrastructure.

Ms Palaszczuk made a valid case for buying-local when she pointed out “this money comes from Queensland taxpayers, it is only right we spent it in a way that benefits Queensland businesses and workers“.

The prime role of a government in a Western-style democracy has always been (or should be!) to protect and enhance it’s citizens. Creating an environment where local jobs flourish is part and parcel of that dictum.

Governments are not “in business” to create jobs in other countries at the expense of their own workers.

“ The ‘Buy Queensland’ promotion should be about encouraging Aussies to buy their local product, just like ‘Buy NZ Made’ encourages New Zealanders to buy Kiwi-made. It’s OK to encourage your people to buy local, but it’s not OK to mandate State Government weightings that amount to protectionism.

The protectionism in Queensland’s policy is completely contrary to Closer Economic Relations between New Zealand and Australia.”

In plain english, Ms Beard is fine with “it’s OK to encourage your people to buy local,” but “it’s not OK to mandate State Government weightings that amount to protectionism” because it harmed the interests of her members.

Tough. It’s about time globalisation began to be rolled back instead of continually exporting jobs and entire businesses to off-shore jurisdictions where labour is cheaper and easily exploitable because of lax (or unenforced) labour laws.

We need fair trade, not so-called “free” trade. “Free” trade is not free when we, the tax-payers, have to foot the bill to pay for welfare, because workers became unemployed after their jobs were exported to China, Vietnam, Pakistan, Fiji, etc, or cheaper (and often shoddier) goods imported to unfairly compete with locally-made products.

Queensland’s Premier understands this. She wants jobs created for her own workers – not in some other country. Especially when those workers in other nations won’t be paying tax in Queensland.

A recent poll has added to Auckland mayor, Len Brown’s problems. Horizon Research recently revealed that the incumbent, Len Brown, has a serious challenger in the form of current Labour MP, Phil Goff;

Former Labour leader and cabinet minister Phil Goff is a clear front runner in results of a poll on who would receive most current and potential support if they were to run for the Auckland Mayoralty in 2016.

A Horizon Research poll of Auckland Council area residents conducted between 19 and 26 March 2015 finds Mr Goff, the MP for Mt Roskill, has 20% support of all respondents if he were to become a Mayoral candidate.

Former Mayor John Banks has 8% support.

Current Mayor Len Brown has 5%.

Runners-up in the poll were CEO for Auckland Chamber of Commerce, Michael Barnett, at 5%; National MP for Pakuranga, Maurice Williamson at 6%; current right-wing councillor Cameron Brewer at 5%; and Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse, at 4%.

One year ago, on 20 March 2014, the Herald published a more scientific survey which also gave bad news for any future Len Brown mayoral-candidacy.

The results were again less than encouraging for Brown;

Only 22.7 per cent of the people questioned in this month’s poll said they would vote for Mr Brown in the 2016 elections; 57.7 per cent said they would not. The other 20 per cent said they did not know or did not vote in local body elections.

Interestingly, the beneficiary of any anti-Brown voter-sentiment would appear to be another “left-leaning” candidate (Goff), and not his previous electoral rival, John Banks.

Despite his initial conviction, for filing a false electoral return for his failed 2010 mayoral campaign, being quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2014, public perception of Banks’ lack of judgement may weigh against him for any political come-back. The ex-National MP; ex-ACT MP; and ex-Mayor is seen as too “accident”-prone to be considered a viable alternative to Len Brown.

Banks’ re-trial – set for 6 July this year – is by no means a guarantee that he will be found Not Guilty this time around.

Other right contenders are Maurice Williamson and John Palino – the latter implicated in dirty dealings with a well-known right-wing blogger who ‘outed’ Brown’s affair with Auckland woman, Bevan Chuang;

Auckland city councillor, Cameron Brewer, has also expressed a willingness to stand on a right-wing ticket. But aside from looking like a minor character who inhabits the comic-book store in the US sitcom, ‘Big Bang Theory‘, it is hard to see what he has going for him. As with Banks, Brown, and Williamson, contenders for a mayoralty require a strong, out-going personality. ‘Nuff said.

Which leaves Maurice Williamson as the most likely right-wing adversary for a Goff tilt at the Auckland mayoralty.

Despite receiving only 14% support in the unscientific 18 March poll, support for Williamson cannot be under-estimated. His famous “Big Gay Rainbow” speech in Parliament on 17 April 2013 alone must have cemented Williamson as an inspirational beacon of hope for the LGBT community in Auckland.

With a decent campaign team and predictably plentiful donations of cash from the business sector, Williamson could yet prove a strong adversary for Phil Goff.

One thing is for certain, as the Horizon Poll pointed out, Len Brown’s political career appears to be over;

“Indications are that 65% of ratepayers would not consider voting for Mr Brown if he were to be a candidate.”

It would be interesting to know who commissioned the poll-questioning regarding Auckland’s mayoralty.

The real question for the Left is, would a Phil Goff mayoralty be any better?

One who is “fiscally responsible”, he says, who “doesn’t rate people to death”, tries to do more with less, while creating a “socially inclusive city”.

Goff might as well have been standing as a card-carrying member of the ACT Party. His belated reference to “a socially inclusive city” wasn’t so much as “tacked on” as an after-thought – but stuck on with blue-tac, and liable to fall off at any moment.

A recent Horizon poll had the usual mix of political and business-oriented questions. It is usually fairly easy to get a rough idea who commissioned certain questions in a poll. In this Horizon poll, received on 19 March, it seems fairly obvious that a powerco and peer-to-peer/crowd-equity -under commissioned two sets of questions.

The last set of questions, though, related to the topical issue of mass surveillance and data collection.

Note the bottom of page 20. Someone is very keen to know how the public feel about John Key’s “management of the issue of the mass interception of personal data”.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Note the questions on the page below;

.

.

.

.

.

It will be interesting to know what the results are. And even more interesting to know who commissioned the questions relating to mass surveillance/data collection?

Note: this header-image above was not partof the Polling Questionnaire in any way, shape, or form. Are you paying attention, Slater? Step awaaaaay from the computer terminal…

.

The results for the Horizon Research Poll*, on criminalising sea-protests via the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Amendment Bill;

79% want sea protest law change reviewed or stopped

16 Apr 13

Credit: Element Magazine

Surveys finds New Zealanders uncomfortable with sea protest law change

Overall 79% of New Zealanders, regardless of their political alignment, believe a bill restricting rights to protest at sea should now go back to a Parliamentary Select Committee for more thorough scrutiny and public submissions or be dropped.

The Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Amendment Bill is due to go through its third and final reading at Parliament today (April 16).

The Horizon Research survey of 1,308 New Zealanders aged 18+, between 12:26 pm on 13 April 2013 and 10:30am on 15 April 2013, finds:

Overall, 51.4% oppose a proposed new law which would make some currently lawful protest activities against petroleum and minerals activities at sea unlawful

Support for the law change is 30.5% while the remainder are neutral or undecided.

The changes were introduced to the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Amendment Bill 2012 in Supplementary Order Paper No 205 (SOP No 205). The proposals contained in SOP No. 205 were first outlined in a media release on 31 March 2013 and the Supplementary Order Paper itself was released on 2 April 2013 by Hon Simon Bridges – Minister of Energy and Resources.

Meeting as a Committee of the Whole on April 11, the changes won support by 61 votes to 59 in the Parliament. The bill is now set down for its final reading on Parliament’s next sitting day, Tuesday April 16, 2013.

The Horizon survey finds

49% of respondents were not aware and 51% were aware of the proposed law changes before doing the survey

Overall, 60% think the law change process has been undertaken too quickly, and

52.3% believe the bill should be sent back to the Select Committee. A majority of those who support parties who voted for the change think that the bill should be sent back to the Select Committee

Overall, 79% support either sending the bill back to the Select Committee or withdrawing it entirely.

The National, Act and United Future parties voted for the SOP in the House on April 12, Labour, Green, Maori and Mana parties against.

Q7. Thinking about the proposed law change, which of the following actions would you support?

TOTAL

Supporters of:

Parties who voted for the SOP

Parties who voted against the SOP

The bill should become law immediately

20.1%

37.1%

6.0%

The bill should be sent back to select committee for more thorough scrutiny and public submissions

52.3%

51.6%

52.2%

The bill should be withdrawn and not passed into law

29.7%

13.5%

42.2%

Something else should happen

7.3%

2.0%

7.4%

Support and opposition to the changes proposed to the bill are strongly aligned to support for political parties. Support comes primarily from those who support the parties that voted for the changes; opposition largely from those who support the parties who voted against the changes.

Overall, however, a majority of respondents, regardless of their political alignment, believe the bill should now go back to the Select Committee for more thorough scrutiny and public submissions.

There is general acknowledgement that many important environmental protection initiatives arose from protests at sea, including the moratorium on commercial whaling, the bans on dumping nuclear waste at sea and on using of driftnets, New Zealand’s nuclear free status and the end of French atmospheric nuclear tests in the Pacific. While that acknowledgement is stronger among the opposition, a majority of supporters of the change feel that way as well.

Opinion on the harshness or otherwise of the change and associated penalties is again politically aligned.

There is also an indication that more discussion and better information about the change may lead to people being less neutral about it. While support remained a minority overall, respondents were a little more supportive at the end of the survey that at the beginning. Similarly, more opposed the change at the end of the survey than at the beginning.

Thankfully there was no word limit in the field. I responded accordingly,

.

.

The next question was fairly complex, with multiple options for answers. I had to pick each option carefully,

.

.

The following question was easy to answer,

.

.

The next question was a follow-up with a request to explain my previous response,

.

.

This one was obvious,

.

.

Also a straight forward question,

.

.

And this question really allowed me to ‘let rip’ with my thoughts on this issue,

.

.

An incoming Labour-Green government will have a full legislative agenda, repealing many of National’s undemocratic laws. As with the “Hobbit Law” (which Labour has pledged to repeal – see: Labour vows to repeal Hobbit Law), there are many pieces of legislation which have no place in a liberal democracy, and should be binned as soon as Labour Ministers are sworn into office.

.

.

It would be interesting to learn who the client (if any) was for this poll.

In what has been one of the fastest pieces of law-making in New Zealand’s history, the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Amendment Bill passed its third reading in Parliament at 4.30pm today (16 April) by 61 votes to 59. Next step; the Bill will proceed to the Governor General for assent and become law.

Horizon’s current poll is focused on the Sky City/Convention Centre/National Party issue. The question were incredibly straight forward and pulled no punches on this controversial issue.

For readers’ edification, I present the Horizon Poll, and my responses,

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

(Note, there was no page 7)

.

.

.

This blogger has requested the results of the Poll, which will be presented as an update on this Blogpost. My guess is that Horizon’s results will mirror those presented in Stuff.co.nz and Herald on-line polling.

MMP is still the preferred option, with FPP coming in second place. This will no doubt annoy the heck out of the “Vote for Change” lobby group, who chose the FPP-variant, Supplementary Member (SM) as their preferred option.

Big mistake, boys. I know why you did it – you believed that FPP was tainted by past political abuses of power (which is correct) and that Supplementary Member would be a welcome alternative. “Vote for Change” even touted SM as a “compromise between FPP and MMP – which it isn’t, of course. But you relied on low-information voters not knowing this and following your lead.

Unfortunately for “Vote for Change”, their non-existant campaign achieved very little. In fact, it was distinctly amateurish, to put it mildly.

As usual, Horizon Polling results differ markedly from Roy Morgan, Herald-Digipoll, et al, because Horizon prompts Undecided respondants to state a preference. Other pollsters also often do not include Undecideds when calculating their percentages.

Very similar results to the Horizon Poll, with two important exceptions – Fairfax had the following results for National and NZ First;

National – 54%

NZ First – 4%

Significantly different to the Horizon Poll.

As the poll above stands, a Labour-led government is possible, with NZ First support. (And woe betide Winston Peters if he plays silly-buggers with Supply & Confidence.)

The election results will point to which company has gauged voter preferences the most accurately.

.

Maori voting intentions

.

As Maori politics follows Pakeha political movement and fragmentation along classic Left/Right lines, Mana and Maori Parties are becoming critical potentional partners for National and Labour. (Phil Goff may say he won’t go into Coalition with the Mana Party – but I believe he will need Hone Harawira’s Supply & Confidence to govern. He is hardly likely to turn down Mana Party support – critical if the left are to win on Saturday.)

It is interesting to note that, generally speaking, Maori still favour Labour-led government;

20% of Maori want the Maori Party to enter a post-election coalition agreement with National.

53.5% would prefer it enter a Labour coalition.

45.8% of Maori would prefer Mana to enter a coalition agreement with Labour, 9.2% National.

If Horizon Polling is accurate – and I believe that their results are more realistic than the 50%, 53%, 56%, results that other polling companies have been coming up with – then National is on-course to being a one-term government.